First iPhone 3rd Party GUI App Compiles 196
CmputrAce writes "Well, it's here now. The #iphone-dev team has compiled the first third-party application for the iPhone. Of course, it is the standard "Hello, world." application, but it's native to the iPhone and uses the iPhone's GUI. This opens up the iPhone for development by anyone who can forge through the process of cracking the iPhone, installing the iPhone "Toolchain", writing an application, compiling, translating, and finally installing the application to the iPhone. With the pace of development at present, expect to see commercial "jailbreak" (mod-enabling) applications soon as well. You can already get high-quality applications (Mac) to theme the iPhone and add your own ring tones (Win) for the phone."
Does Apple care? (Score:2)
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DMCA (Score:2)
Re:DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DMCA (Score:4, Interesting)
Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network. ---- exemption 5, expires October 2009 (source) [copyright.gov]
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Don't bother honoring the webmasters requests (Score:5, Interesting)
http://iphone.fiveforty.net/wiki/index.php/Popula
Perhaps This is a Better link (Score:4, Informative)
Um, did *you* read the request? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just sayin...
Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
What does this have to do with the devkit? If Apple had done this, they would have been able to officially open up the devkit and application developers would have created a legitimate cottage industry around it, making it into a extremely versatile mobile communicator. The iPhone would have been revolutionary (literally) rather than a overpriced, though flashy, paperweight for anyone but those foolish enough to sign a contract with Cingular/AT&T (I don't view the use of it just for wifi as really relevant since then it must simple be viewed as a PDA and not a general communications device, and there are far better PDA solutions out there).
The last hope for a healthy carrier market now lies with Google's attempt to force itself into the spectrum auction.
Re:Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I understand the carrier (AT&T) had to do a lot of work on their end to support the phone. The visual voicemail system alone required AT&T to update how their voicemail system works. By picking an exclusive partner Apple ensured that all these changes would work properly with the iPhone. If they simply dumped an unlocked phone on the market then a lot of the fancy gimmicks they've been touting wouldn't work for the vast majority of people, and you'd end up with a lot of people griping about how the phone doesn't work the way it was advertised.
Tying the iPhone to a single carrier is only to be expected considering Apple's history. They've always held tight control over their hardware and peripherals, and they're basically doing the same thing here.
Re:Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
"All the fancy gimmicks" - it's the voice mail only. That's only fancy gimmick that requires carrier coop. Not a lot to lose I think.
Big enough, and ignores future potential (Score:2, Insightful)
Random-access voice mail, that you can access on a plane away from cell signals, is in fact very handy.
But what you are really ignoring is the potentital for Apple to add other features like Visual Voicemail that require carrier support. Apple gets to mold a carrier API for FIVE YEARS to end up with a featureset they like in carrier support, and then force other carriers to o
Visual voicemail is not a gimmick (Score:5, Insightful)
That is unless of course you enjoy listening to the automated "message received at... press x to listen... press y to delete" crap after being forced to wade through and delete old voicemail before listening to that new one you just received.
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And the more you use voicemail, the more glorious this becomes. My girlfriend gets off of work every day and can have 3-7 voicemails from friends and family waiting for her. She was wait
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The visual voicemail system alone required AT&T to update how their voicemail system works.
Have you heard the quality of messages stored by this system? They are compressed beyond coherency - imagine trying to comprehend a phone call in a shoe box in a tin can underwater in a flushing toilet bowl. It's about 1000x worse than that. And, in all respects, AT&T's customer support is even less coherent.
Tying the iPhone to a single carrier is only to be expected considering Apple's history.
When has Apple tied their other offerings to specific carriers? Would this be comparable to how Apple does not die their desktop offerings to AOL? Please elaborate.
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He means: Apple always limits the options of their customers to retain control of the offer and the final experience.
They don't allow you to install OSX on custom hardware. They don't allow people to build Apple-compatible hardware. They have locked down almost everything in their OS interface, and the options are limited.
Initially they had all p
Re:Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity (Score:4, Informative)
Initially they had all proprietary ports for peripherals even, and you had to buy special Apple printers and what not (now they're more liberal in that department).
Apple also had good reason for what type of connections they used for their peripherals. The first Mac used a DB-9 port, RJ11 connector for the Macintosh Keyboard, two RS-232/RS-422 serial ports, and a sound port for external audio amplifier or headphones. These are all standard ports. Throughout the years Apple tried several different types of ports, almost all of them were non-proprietary standards. Even the "proprietary" printer port was a standard Mini-DIN 8 port. Oh and you didn't need a special Apple printer, most Apple computers of that era had standard SCSI ports and many printers worked just fine with the proper parallel to SCSI cable.
The difference is that Apple sometimes made choices that the non-Apple computer manufacturers didn't adopt. This is mostly because Apple was willing to try new standards in order to make a better product. A good example of this is USB. Prior to the iMac almost no computers were made with USB ports. The iMac abandoned almost all types of ports out there and just had USB ports. This was a very risky move on Apple's part but it caught on and now USB is the de-facto standard.
Re:Strategic Blunder, Missed Opportunity (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with your points. The one thing I would like to point out is USB ports. Many computers had them before the iMac, not the majority but many. I know my computer certainly did. That said, no one used them. There were essentially no USB products on the market, if you wanted to see more than 2 or three you had to go look online (shopping online was of course much less common then).
Then the iMac came out.
Within months there were USB everything, and more importantly, you could actually go down to a store and BUY the stuff. Apple wasn't the first to put USB ports on computers, but they were the ones to actually get them used. I wonder just how long it would have taken for USB to get used if Apple hadn't done that. Dell/Gateway/HP/Compaq/etc didn't have the guts to do it.
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Back then there were many different incompatible computers with no clear market leader. Every computer had it's own ports.
They did not require you to buy "special Apple printers". Although Macs initially only shipped with drivers for Apple printers (later Macs also included drivers for HP printers). The serial ports were RS-232 compatible, so, with an adaptor and the correct drivers
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Hmmmm, I don't think it's so black-and-white. Without partnering with a carrier (who itself was willing to make system and software changes to accommodate iPhone-specific functionality), will the iPhone be more or less successful? Since Apple went down the AT&T path, we'll never know, but we will be
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No Blunder Or Missed Chance, Just A Bitter Geek (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple's goal isn't to open the carrier market for YOUR purposes. You are applying your wishful thinking onto Apple's business plans. First of all why are you saying Apple limited themselves to the US Market? Have you been in a cave that has prevented you from knowing that European and Asian launches are coming in 2008 if not sooner? As for offering the phone SIM-less thats not Apple's style. Apple makes things EASY and SIMPLE to use. If the purchaser of the phone has to figure out what carrier they're going to use and then find a SIM card for it thats just not easy enough. Its too hard. I know you're going to scoff because you are a geek but you aren't Apple's target market. No geek is. Ease of use, ease of use, ease of use. Thats Apple's DNA. Your method introduces uncessary complexity.
When you purchase the iPhone, you take it home, connect it to your computer and iTunes pops up to take you thru the activation process. Its EXTREMELY simple. Now imagine had it been sold SIM less. Each person would have to get the appropriate SIM for the carrier they wanted to go with. Thats just far too messy for Apple's tastes.
Ironically long term Apple will still bring about a healthy carrier market anyway. When the 5 year contract with AT&T is up the other carriers will certainly jump to offer the iPhone just to stop the bleeding of their own subscriber numbers. I wouldn't bet on Google coming to the rescue. They've got a lot of industry inertia and lobbyists to combat against which could take YEARS.
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Ive seen Nokia Symbian based phones. Robert Scoble, and many others, are giving up their N95s to get yhe iPhone. Nokia really
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Features are pointless if most folks never use them because the UI sucks so badly that they cannot figure out how to in the first place
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Also here is the NYTimes article about asian manufacturers being worried about the iPhone: "Rival Manufacturers Chase the iPhone: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/02/technology/0 [nytimes.com]
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Expect anything different from a cellphone by Apple?
couldn't resist.
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What bands were you thinking of in addition to 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz [apple.com]?
History Lesson (Score:5, Funny)
Re:History Lesson (Score:5, Funny)
They also tried to remove the battery, but it was hardwired!
Mac users want one thing, Windows users another? (Score:5, Funny)
Mac users want high-quality applications.
Windows users want ringtones.
It's all clear now.
Re:Mac users want one thing, Windows users another (Score:2)
Applications to theme the iPhone?
That sounds more like a Linux thing.
I wonder who'll port Enlightenment to the iPhone first?
(HHOS)
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My Hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, until... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is all great, until Apple and AT&T remotely shut off the phones due to violating the terms of service. How many console and other online accounts have been disabled due to cheating or other "legit" modding? It's just a matter of time before we hear the first reports of people having their iphones cut off, with no subscription fee refund.
If Apple is really smart, they'll figure out how to shut off the phone and continue to charge any subscription fees until the original service plan expires. Free money for them, and no legal recourse for anyone who willfully violated the TOS.
Yea it's not very nice but they have a business plan that probably doesn't include having customers bypassing the fee-based services they provide. Unlike the iopener fiasco, the iphone is cool enough that it'll keep selling no matter how many people lose their service after hacking/modding/whatever their iphone.
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Yeah! Objective C! (Score:2)
Re:Battery Life (Score:5, Insightful)
So I take it your iPhone battery ran out after only 9 months of use?
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Wow, mod parent insightful, he can count!
Re:Battery Life (Score:5, Funny)
In my day, batteries would only last about 24 hours, and you had to recharge your phone every night! 3/4 of a year is luxury compared to what we had to put up with, before Steve Jobs came up with the brilliant idea of putting an OS on a phone and making it run using fairy dust and moonbeams.
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Yeah, that is lousy... but this is not an iPhone-specific issue. It is the major drawback of all Li-ion batteries (including those in other cellular phones).
The advantage of Li-ion is that unlike most other rechargeable batteries, they will not self-discharge (i.e. lose power when not
Li-ion vs NiCd and the memory effect (Score:2)
Li-ion batteries don't suffer from that issue, but they still do deteriorate.
Not dupe Re:Dupe (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not dupe Re:Dupe (Score:5, Interesting)
This is very exciting for developers, I really hope that Apple either encourages this or at the worst turns a blind eye to it. Apple hasn't done much to discourage people from modding their iPods, Macintoshes, or Apple TVs, lets hope that trend continues. If the iPhone becomes a true handheld computer and not just a fancy phone then I can see it really taking off.
WTF is the "heavenly" user-bundle though ? (Score:2)
Anyone any idea ?
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Now all I have to do is figure out whether the fact I don't have the file 'arm-cc-specs' for:
cp Csu-71/arm-cc-specs ~/.arm-cc-specs
Simon
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find . -name '*.specs'
Cheers,
Simon
Taking off and landing back quickly to refuel (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong. I love my iPhone and I'd buy it again if it was half as awesome as it right now and the battery is great too for a cellphone/browser/media player, but it can't work miracles. Trying to use the iPhone for heavy computation will suck its juice up in a handful of hours (the h.264 videos on the iPhone plays dodge that by being hardware assisted). The most probable reason flash suppo
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Clearly this app had to be installed to be run, right?
I mean, there are binary builds of some apps already, which may not be particu
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Well I don't know how I'm going to prove that I have an iPhone or how you're going to pay me, but pay up. I got a 8GB model the first weekend.
Anyway, I don't want to "hack" anything. I have better things to do than fuck around with things getting them to do things that they aren't supposed to do. Still, I'd like to get a SSH client running on my iPhone. I don't care if I can get a bash prompt to the iPhone itself (locally), but it would be helpful if I could run scripts on some of my servers.
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A lot of games don't use the buttons at all or can be played without them. A bigger issue is the fact that many of the DS UI elements are small - too small to hit with a finger.
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I think the two screens would easily fit on the iPhone's screen.
Re:Read the Story! (Score:2, Informative)
Why are you so negative? Get a life!
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To be fair, most cell phone companies go out of their way (not just Apple) to hide this fact. You would be hard pressed to find 3rd party information on such things, but at least there are work arounds.
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Re:Fanboi (Score:5, Funny)
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why don't we spend our time complaining about the necessity of this hacking?
Because that's a waste of time! Do you really think they would listen?
wouldn't the undeniable skill of these people be better put to use elsewhere?
Not everything in this world is about efficiency or usefulness. And I'm glad about that. They do it because they like to do this. They probably do it in their spare time, just for the fun. And who knows suddenly something useful comes out of it, they start their own company maybe, wait and see.
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The reason they don't is that Apple cultists are submissive people who worship fashion and crave social status (which is only perceived by themselves). The quality of the engineering is of minor importance, and generally only matters to the degree that it exceeds some Microsoft effort.
You won't find them clamoring for an open iPhone because it would diminish the importance o
Do you even think before you type? (Score:5, Insightful)
Second this shows you know next to nothing about the Mac using community. The level of hacking and shareware development on Macs has been HIGH for decades. There were folks tinkering around with source code and resource editors on Macs before Linux was even created. When you move to an open platform you only gain ONE thing, software freedom. When you move to an Apple platform you gain ease of use. I've seen TONS of geeks in #freebsd and #linux channels moving to Mac OS X because they're tired of fighting with their operating system when they just want to get simple common tasks done (like playing DVDs, burning DVDs, getting onto a WPA encrypted wifi networks, good power management, simple software updates, decent office suites, no trouble video codec playback....etc.) When these same folks WANT to get down to something complicated the terminal is always there for them in
So to recap, you are wrong. The contributions of hackers is very much appreciated on the Mac OS X platform and will be the same for the iPhone. What we DON'T want is for Apple itself to be distracted from its core mission of making its products ridiculously easy and joyful to use. Perhaps if your own operating system were more pleasureable to use you (and a good number of other open source users) wouldn't be such miserable, bitter and spiteful people. Here's to hoping.
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As an Apple user (Score:2)
It also has something to do with a misguided belief that removing functionality is anything but the lazy man's way of improving simplicity in the user experience. Jobs' rabid KISS-ism rubs off on them to the point that they think the mere act of adding features will cause people to reject the iPhone as "too complicated" or "too geeky."
Apple has already proven with OS X that it is entirely capable of creating a very easy-to-use consumer machine with an enormous amo
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a) I'm not a hacker/programmer/developer
b) I (me personally) find using a Mac to be far easier and more useful to use than any other OS out there
c) Final Cut Pro! (I'm a video editor by trade)
The fact that Apple products tend to look cool is just a bonus these days. I've used all the beige varieties that they
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from what i can see, the iphone is a fashion accessory being hyped beyond all proportion to its ability. i do also happen to think the world would be better if it failed. the world does not need a proprietary competitor to microsoft, the world needs open standards and laws which protect the rights of the individual to do whatever they want with their property, provided they don't hurt someone. i ca
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this would do nothing to break the strength of proprietary software and closed file formats. people in developing countries would still be dependent on the rich western countries if they wish to interoperate with them. people who use free and open source software would still be at a disadvantage.
versions o
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The iPhone is good for you, even if you don't care (Score:2)
from what i can see, the iphone is a fashion accessory being hyped beyond all proportion to its ability.
I think you're missing what the iPhone's "ability" is. A lot of people hate their cell phones. Personally, I own a P990i, a phone which has about 10 times more features than the iPhone. Unfortunately, I don't use them. For example, connecting to a wireless network requires that I complete a wizard with lots of strange questions that the phone could answer itself if the programmers had spent a bit more time on usabilty. Making sure the phone connects using the WiFi network instead of the 3G connection mean
Re:The iPhone is good for you, even if you don't c (Score:2)
The iPhone is great for everyone, even for those who don't care. Even before the iPhone's launch, Palm responded by hiring former Apple people to work on their UI. Other manufacturers will be forced to do the same: Right now, they are selling their phones to the carriers. Apple will force them to start thinking about the actual users, and what they might want. Even open alternatives will profit. I don't think Ubuntu would be where it is today were it not for Mac OS X. Apple is the main driving force in making digital stuff usable. They are pushing everyone else ahead. Even if you don't agree with their politics, even if you don't use any of their stuff, you still profit tremendously from their existence and from their work.
apple is about making money. it does this by being fashionable.
an example, the last time i used mac osx i had great difficulty doing the simplest of tasks (starting applications, saving files etc.). you can probably explain to me in two sentences why "the apple way" is better than the "way other systems use". my point is, i would have to learn it. it's not as if the ability to use os x is a native trait of being human while the ability to use windows xp (or one of its close relatives like gnome or kde)
Ease of use = entire selling point of iPhone (Score:2)
apple is about making money. it does this by being fashionable.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. It's a non-sequitur - I never claimed Apple didn't want to make money. Of course they do. They're a corporation. Second, it's only partially right. If all Apple did was being fashionable, they'd be dead next season. Apple's main draw is not that they are fashionable (although currently they clearly are). Their main draw is that their top priority is to design for humans. And I don't mean "design" only in a "look pretty" way, but also in a "works the way I expec
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for someone coming from the windows/kde/gnome way of doing things, osx seems strange, unnatural and untrustworthy. it does not have the benefit of ease of use. using it is to begin with difficult. that is the same for any change.
when it comes to usage paradigmas for windowing systems, knowledge and experience with a standard windows set-up is the norm. everybody knows it. it is quasi by definition the easy-to-use system for most people. osx isn't.
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Not at all. I understand your point: You are used to Windows and/or some Linux distro, thus find this system easy to use, and you think most people are like you. You're wrong on the last part, of course. So I do understand your point, but I think you don't understand mine. You probabbly don't want to, seeing how you intentionally confuse familiarity with ease-of-use and learnability, and how you continue to ignore efficiency of use. Which is okay, bu
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"It's not nearly as good as . Apple are dumb."
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That's not what people said about the iPod when it was launched
The thing most people miss is that the first iPod really was lame. It was less lame than its competitors (smaller, better UI) but it was still:
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Like the iPhone, the iPod didn't ever claim to be the best audio player you'll ever buy. The iPod won out in specific areas that Apple considered to be most important, and it was worthwhile (temporarily, in some instances) sacrificing other aspects in order to provide for what Apple considered to be the important ones. The iPod UI has barely changed sinc
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, it's no such thing.
Simon. (Presenting as much argument for my case as the original poster did for his/hers)
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No it's not. Calling it an "established fact" doesn't make it so.
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http://www.openmoko.org/ [openmoko.org]
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misportrayal (Score:2)
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I think the parent (now gp) was implying more than that. The implication you suggest -- and the comparison about dev kits ("Maybe it will have one in the future, maybe the iphone will too") -- doesn't hold water. The iPhone is released, and
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Oh, and chicks dig the iPhone.
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As soon as someone complains about something you might have to do every four years or so, I can automatically dismiss the arguments they make as ill-informed and overly simplistic.
The iPhone is not really a "does everything" phone, it too takes a few tasks and focu
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